Green Coke with natural sweetener stevia launched in Argentina

Coca Cola has used their familiar and distinctive curved script since 1887 and since the 1920s their famous logo has been placed on a red background on the company's classic cola. But the soda brand is now going green, at least in Argentina.

The new product has 108 calories in a 600 millilitre bottle - between classic Coke with 250 calories and the zero-calorie Diet Coke

The drinks giant has launched Coca Cola Life, which is sweetened with sugar and the naturally occurring, no-calorie sweetener stevia. The new product features a striking green label and is packaged in the award-winning PlantBottle. This is made with 30% plant material and is fully recyclable.

Coca Cola says the bottle “looks functions and recycles just like traditional PET plastic, but does so with a lighter footprint on the planet and its scarce resources”.

The new drink has 108 calories in a 600 millilitre bottle - between classic Coke with 250 calories and the zero-calorie Diet Coke.

“Coca-Cola Life is the first soda from the Coca-Cola family that is naturally sweetened with sugar and Stevia, which adds to our portfolio a delicious taste with a proposed low in calories” Coca-Cola stated on its Argentinean website.

The world's largest soda company has used stevia in 45 products, such as Vitaminwater Zero and Fanta Select, but never in its flagship cola.

There is no date for introducing the product elsewhere. Company executives at a news conference in Buenos Aires likened the launch with the 2005 debut of Coca-Cola Zero, which was first introduced in Australia and later sold elsewhere.

Coke and Pepsi have been using stevia, a plant native to Paraguay, in drinks for years, but mostly in noncarbonated, fruit-flavored drinks.

As recently as May, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said stevia did not work well in colas, even though Pepsi Next in Australia uses stevia. Pepsi Next in other markets, including the United States, uses a mix of high-fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners.

This latest offering from Coca Cola comes hot on the heels of the company releasing a new bottle made entirely of ice. Currently only available in Colombia, the design is being marketed as eco friendly since it melts after the coke is consumed, meaning there is nothing left to throw away or recycle.

A Spanish advertisement for Botello de Hielo (bottle of ice) shows beach-goers enjoying the ice cold beverages on a hot day, and then letting their bottles melt away in the sand.

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Back in 1945 Marshal Georgy Zhukov was presented with a bottle of ordinary coke by his opposite number (Eisenhower) and was rather taken with it, but didn't want to be seen drinking decadant imperial fizzy pop. So he asked if there was any way to make it transparent (to pass for vodka, so he could drink it in public).

Needless to say, they found a way and the first 50 cases off of the production line (in occupied Austria) were shipped to the Marshal (complete with a redesigned label that didn't look decadant and imperial).
Oddly enough by impersonating vodka, the deliveries of white coke were often not held up by the bureaucracy that effected every other delivery.

I just remember new Coke in the 80s and was grateful the Goddess of the Just and Ordered Universe when I discovered a seemingly long-forgotten mezzanine drink machine at the office that still had RC brand cola in it. I showed my gratitude by giving her a blood sacrifice by pushing a fellow intern down the stairs who liked the new coke.

Don't worry about my scams. I think you'll find that most people in Europe and the USA take part in such scams (buying limited edition items), for their value.

Of course, I was saying this mainly in jest, but who knows. It's not my only basket of eggs. Argentina is not what people here say it is, it could be significantly better, but the posters here also live in a propaganda bubble.

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